Is.43:1-7
Ps.29
Acts 8:14-17
Luke 3:15-17,21-22

Epiphany lC-RCL
HE2B/Ser.lO:00

RIVERS IN LIFE

Credit: Pulp.Resource; The Living Church 1/13/85
Prev.preached: Chelsea 1988; Holliston 1997; Quincy 2000 10:00

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Water and water supplies have been much in the news recently, what with floods in the Midwest, great amounts of snow and ice here and elsewhere, and concerns about the adequacy and the purity of public water supplies. Water. It is a Baptismal subject, one that we think about on this Sunday of the Lord's Baptism.

I. The tiny drops of water that sprinkled your hair, or the water from the hand or the shell that was poured across your head, or the splash and the gurgle of waters that covered you in immersion Baptism: however water came to you, in Baptism you are in the river of water, the River Jordan -the waters which are the seed of the Spirit. Once you have been claimed and washed and watered by the God Who lives with us - who takes upon Himself all the hurt and suffering of human greed and desire - once that water has washed you, the seed of the Spirit is there in that water. You may struggle, you may doubt, you may deny its existence, you may insult it or ignore it, you may take it into a brothel or a battlefield or a murder. But you will not be rid of it.

That river is inside you. The seed is there. It is there to remind you that you are so much more than you seem - so much more than you know. How long before you or I acknowledge that seed? It will grow, you know, even in the swampy ground of your life and mine.

All of creation is flowing inside you. All of the love you have ever felt from someone who gave you more than you deserve or even desired. All of it is there in the sprout of that seed. Millions of years of human evolution are there. The flash, the explosion that struck the darkness at the beginning of creation: "Let there be light ... " - that is there. The pain of an undeserved execution on a cross is there. And so is the life that insists on beginning again after death, of whatever kind - the new life that knows both living and dying - all of this grows in the seed, wherever it is cast - the seed carried by the waters of Baptism.

O yes - you and I will forget about it when sales are down and the economy is a mess - when there are star wars to chart and taxes to pay and games to win. But that seed is there growing. It sprouts in the pang of conscience when you least expect it - when you can't afford to "go soft", as your friends would call it. It touches at the shores of sleep and sometimes disturbs you in dreams. It comes in a vision. It is there! You are marked. That seed is waiting within you for you to hear the words, "You are my beloved sen, my beloved daughter."

II. Another stream of life has begun in our life now, the river of 2010. Tributaries of experience and circumstance will flow into it in the next twelve months, and it will swell into a mighty river by the end of 20l0. Some of the year will flow smoothly, merrily along like a sparkling, bubbling brook, dancing with happy occasions and pleasant happenings. But some parts of this year's stream will be dammed up - the smooth, steady flow of life will be blocked the cancer that will suddenly become known - the child who will not do better in school - the marriage that cannot be saved. Brick walls and dead ends - dams that will halt the flow of life and seemingly prevent life from going on.

It is at such times that we return to our Source - we remember God's promise to Israel and to us: "I will pour my Spirit upon your descendants, and my blessing on your offspring" (Is.44:3).

A. That redeeming stream began to flow again at the Baptism of our Lord. And it flows for us individually from our own Baptism. When we are baptized with water, it is the beginning of our Christian journey. Our Baptism takes its significance from the Baptism of Jesus. Just as His was the beginning of His ministry, His day of ordination, so to speak - so is our Baptism. Just as the Spirit descended at Jesus's Baptism, so the Spirit begins to flow in our lives at our Baptism.

B. All the mighty rivers of the world - the Nile, the Mississippi, the Amazon, the Volga, the Yangtze, the Congo - all have a small beginning - a few drops of water from a glacier, or a spring, or rainwater. So our source of spiritual flow begins with a few drops of water at Baptism. But it isn't the water, it's the Spirit that flows-in with the water, that gives us power and is the secret of our source. "After me comes one who is mightier than I," John the Baptist exclaimed. "I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit."

C. The origins of our relationship with God lie in the secret, remote places of our inner selves, the places where we go when we are looking for our true identity, trying to listen to our true voice. That place, where conversations are held which no other can hear, the secret repository of are, and all we all that we have done, and all that we hope to be - that is where God is for us. We journey to that source like courageous adventurers, searching for the source of the Amazon - and through sources like today's Scriptures, and days like this Sabbath.

Then, having been to this source, we surge forth into life, like the powerful Amazon - a river which begins with a few drops of melting snow, but then tumbles forth, sweeping away obstacles, flowing steadily and surely into the Atlantic, with a power sixty times greater than the Nile which is the longest river in the world.

D. Many churches now have services of Baptismal renewal as we do at every Baptism. And on this Sunday, when the year is still young, and Scripture readings focus en water, and creation, and Baptism; what better time to remember our own Baptism, and the source of our Christian life.

We do well to recall Martin Luther's remark that there is no greater comfort to a Christian than Baptism. Why is this? Because so many times we think of our relationship with God as mostly a matter of what we think, what we believe, what we feel. But Baptism is something done to us, and so it is an ever-present reminder that our salvation, our nearness to God, is a result of what God has done. The same God who reached out and claimed us in our Baptism, continues to hold on to us in life. The source of our hope is the active, resourceful love of God, and what God has done, not what we have done. That is why I always put it so strongly that parents and Godparents should remember the date of Baptism, and constantly remind the child of it.

I have mentioned before that Martin Luther, in his own times of despair, depression and confusion, which we are told were many - received comfort by touching his forehead (where he had been Baptized) and saying to himself, "Martin, be calm. You are Baptized." By that, Luther returned to the source: the river of Baptism is a kind of symbol for the all-encompassing love of God which even in our most troubled and confused moments, waits to receive us and embrace us. And that love actually touched us in our Baptism

Let me conclude with a little piece of history. In the Middle Ages, when young boys entered a monastery to become monks, they would be given a cowl or robe to wear. As these robes were made in only one size, the robe would swallow up the young novice. It was far too large for him and his boyish stature. But given time, the young novice would grow into that robe until the day when he became a man and the robe would fit properly. He was then a monk. He looked like a monk. He now acted like a monk. It fitted.

In a similar way, when we are Baptized, we are promised the gifts of the Spirit, to make us disciples. At our Baptism, we may not look much like mature disciples. The name Christian may be far too big for us. But this is just the beginning. Given time, the promise is that one day we will grow into the commitment until it fits. All the gifts which were incipiently ours as seeds, will be ours in their fullness. We shall come to resemble that which before we only professed and aspired to. We shall have become mature, full disciples. The robe of Baptism will fit. The stream will have fully embraced us.